-Playing around with new types of displays too. Showing flexible display, an Active Display

-Showing Surface and how objects will be interactive. Brain from anatomy class annotated with information, etc.

-Software's helping me out to decide what I need to see, showing me how different concepts of the paper are related to each other and what I'm working on by semantic analysis

-Can filter and just look at stuff from study group, for example

-Also got a bunch of other resources but it can get a little overwhelming. System anticipates types of resources I want to use according to my preferences, color coded for relevance

-Colleague says "check out my drawing," can take a look at the picture

-Got some information provided by professor, animation you could play, it's really something that lets you explore

-Suppose you're a college student, looking at info on a specific class, got this great digital textbook, can look around at different places, load information about the nervous system , pulling information from the cloud

-Janet is now on stage, walking through some conceptual prototypes

-Inviting on stage Janet Galore to show some of the concepts working on in MS Research to push the envelope of how people use technology

-The software will know whether to interrupt you based on what you're doing and who's trying to reach you. Lots of exciting things ahead.

-Be able to write apps that will automatically adjust to capability of your device

-New approaches to writing computer apps that take full advantage of processing power. This industry is up to that task. Screens and displays will literally be everywhere. High-def displays will become cheaper, lighter, and more portable. Third, PCs, phones, TVs, and other devices and the Internet will become a single platform for creating experiences

-This is the kind of technology transformation that happens once every 10-15 years

-Now Ballmer is back on stage

-Whether you're playing Halo, listening to Zune, or getting beat by a 12-year-old on Kodu, MS will connect your entertainment experiences

-All about expanding the audience, creating new opportunities for people to do social and interactive gaming. Across 3 screens, gonna connect friends, family, kids, adults

-"That's a generation-defining experience"

-Sparrow is demoing her game

-Now they can share and distribute finished games with people. Now gonna show an example of a game that's been created and try to compete. Welcome Sparrow (a kid) to the stage to demo her game

-Want the entire breadth of audience to create their own games. Shipping a new product called Kodu, originally started as a way to help kids learn how to program

-Final thing to talk about is the community games channel. Like PrimeTime, this is a channel that is programmed to offer game devs a way to create and sell their own games

-60 million music track downloads on Xbox Live. According to partners, Xbox live accounts for 80 percent of all downloads across all platforms.

-Now transition to music. Weekend nights are turning into music nights at home. Fans want an interactive experience with music and they're getting it on Xbox. Rock Band, American Idol, etc.

-Mobile phone that has a new app that lets you control Netflix queue from Windows Mobile. Can go and organize the queue, and then Xbox will play in that order in that queue

-Very exciting experience very quickly. Can also decide to fast forward, can pan through the show

-Streaming 30 Rock in realtime. Very easy way to get HD content in a very straightforward way. Members can enjoy over 12,000 TV shows and movies

-Fabulous addition, the Netflix Queue. Demoing 30 Rock

-Demo is over. Robbie says it's a great addition to Xbox live this spring. Not just stopping there either, expanding video efforts. Now have 45 movie studios and TV network partners to provide video content to customers. In US in November, added Netflix to that last

-Now showing example of an event on PrimeTime, a live gameshow that lets xbox live members play against others

-Very exciting opportunity to expand, but we're not just gonna stop here. Continue to evolve with new content and opportunities. This spring, we'll launch PrimeTime, a channel on Xbox

-Avatars let people create a virtual person in the universe. Since that's happened, social activity has expanded. Users on average have added 33% more friends than they had previously.

-In particular we see social networks where people meet friends and experience entertainment together. A very exciting place for people to go play.

-Xbox Live is a fun, social experience that lets people access content. Dramatic increased focus on music, etc.

-The second halo title will ship this fall, Halo 3 ODST, a more traditional Halo game in action-packed style with new characters, new scenarios, new events. All of this in 2009

-Bungie team is making a downloadable demo available of Halo Wars on February 5

-The first is Halo Wars, the first T-rated version of Halo and is a strategy game. Expand reach and style of gameplay, available at retail starting February 28

-An average Halo player plays 150 hours of Halo on Xbox live, so it really is the defining application for social gaming. This year is going to be a blockbuster Halo year with 2 new titles

- Now looking at 2009: looking at Halo. Sold over 25 million units of Halo titles. Halo redefines how you think about gameplay online on a console

-Xbox Live now has over 17 million members worldwide, 70% growth in 2008, and in the last 3 months, we added 3 million members

-You'll continue to see accelerated momentum on Xbox

-Spectacular holiday season for Xbox and best year ever. Now over 28 million consoles in 36 countries around the world. Industry-leading attach rate, more games bought on Xbox than any other system, sub-$200 and under 200 euros

-Also expanding Media Room with Media Room Anytime. Ability to "literally" go backwards and watch favorite show from previous day or week.

-Total home DVR: record a show once and play back on any TV in the household

-We now have nearly 2.5 million ppl worldwide subscribing to services through Media Room, growth of over 250% from last year, pace of innovation is accelerating

-Great year on Media Center as well. The average session time is about 90 minutes. When you see what we're gonna do in Windows 7 with Media Center, it'll change your perception of the entertainment on a PC

-We've doubled Zune Social to 2 million, also done a lot of innovation with subscriptions

-Won critics over with Zune social, Zune won a lot of reviews this year as a product and service

-What went on in 2008? Last year, we had a car on stage and announced work done with Ford and Ford Sync. Continued working with Ford and they launched a new version this year called TellMe

-Gonna talk about that in the context across our business

-Connected entertainment isn't just about connecting devices, it's about connecting friends and family, creating social experiences to bring people together

-Now Robbie Bach is on stage to pick up where Steve left off in talking about 3 screens

-(The Ars staff is puzzled by this song)

-Song on stage

-Charlotte is off the stage now. They're showing "I'm a PC" ads

-All of this is Windows, making things easier with Windows 7, browsing the web faster with IE 8, WindowsMobile browsing the web faster

-Can't leave the stage without showing one more thing: favorite new feature in Messenger. Gonna chat with husband to talk about what's going on in Las Vegas.

-Taking the What's New feed and putting it everywhere so you can truly keep up wherever you are

-Quick Add is coming soon, and it brings the content you want into the conversations you're already having

-We've found a better way. I'll reply and there's a quick-add payne on the right, so I go to restaurant search to get Nobu Las Vegas, click insert, and it's in the e-mail

-I have an e-mail from colleague asking what to do for dinner tonight. I already made reservation, so I have to open up another browser window, blah blah blah.

-From the home page, it's easy to click through and drill down on services you use the most. Let's look at Hotmail to make e-mail more social.

-Over 50 partner sites today with the list growing, and the newest partner is Facebook

-In my What's New feed, sister has posted holiday photos. I'm gonna click through to photo album. With one click, I can put them into silverlight slideshow where the background changes to match composition of each photo.

-Gonna change from Russian to English. It means "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas." I hope so!

-Friend has put up intriguing phrase in Russian. Can translate right from the page using WIndows Live.

-A good place to start is home.live.com. Here, there's lots of diff content: e-mail, headlines, what's new on what your contacts are doing

-Windows is about communicating and sharing. We've heard a lot of users talk about being overloaded though. With newest release, Windows Live is a place that brings social updates on the web to you

-Putting phone aside, looking at life on the web. Experience gets even better when you use IE8 as browser.

-Because the phone runs Windows, it was easy to share content online, and that's the key

-Phone will guide where to take picture, adjust, crop, post to Windows Live

-Windows makes it easy to create great content and share it on the web.

-Can also check in for flight, buy movie tickets, do banking transactions

-New Internet Explorer will hit WinMo phones this year. With it, you can find favorite YouTube and also watch it because Flash is built right in

-There's so much more in Windows 7 I could show, but I'm running out of time. We encourage you to visit MS booth at CES

-Really excited about touch on Windows 7

-As we get closer and the buildings come into view, use another motion to tilt the globe to see the sides of the buildings and move through Midtown Manhattan on street level

-Now demoing multitouch to zoom in on globe to look at Manhattan

--Let's switch to touchscreen to show how we're making an investment in touch, built it into the DNA of Windows 7

-Now with HomeGroup, I can access things I need when I need them across PCs and devices

-Notice I can also send husband some music on the Roku in the office

-Listen to music on other PC, or with Play2, send to Xbox in the living room

-When you take work laptop home, now you have access to other home devices

-50 percent of households have more than one PC. Most consumers, setting up a home network is way too complicated. Now there's HomeGroup in Windows 7 and it makes it easy

-Five simple features, but great examples of how Windows 7 makes it easier to do what you want when you want to

-Taskbar is great for launching, but JumpLists help you jump to a specific place within an application, so with one right click, I get jumplist for MediaPlayer. Jumplist for Word gives recent documents I'm working on

-I pin applications to the taskbar a lot, open with one click

-Want to look at specs on these 2, snap one to right half, and snap other to left half. Applause. "Uh! I know!"

-Clear the clutter, look down in the lower right corner. Hover the mouse and peek through documents to the desktop and click to go there

-Down with the cluttered desktop! Windows 7 preview lets you move between sites in taskbar, select sites and close sites right from here

-Charlotte speaking. Get ready to see Windows 7 beta, Windows Mobile, and Windows Live

-Now like to invite on stage Charlotte Jones, who will demo Widows 7, Windows Live, Windows Mobile, after she concludes and shows these things, Robbie Bhatt (?) will talk about TV and connected entertainment

-Again, we're at the start of transforming what Windows is. Making very strong progress, proud of what we're in the process of delivering across Windows on PC, in the cloud, on the phone

-Also thrilled to announce long-term partnership with Verizon to offer live search on all Verizon phones across the US. Search will be similar but somewhat different than searching on the PC. Will become an even bigger part of overall mobile experience.

-Over the past year, brought to market over 30 new WinMo phones

-Excited about the momentum, delivering great new devices for consumers. Already have over 11 different Windows Mobile phones that have each sold over a million units

-Fantastic out of the box experience when people buy a new PC

-Dell will be the first to install this on all of their consumer PCs

-Third, partnership with Dell to preinstall Windows Live network and search on all PCs worldwide

-Updates you make and photos will automatically be published to Windows Live network

-Second, announcing partnership with Facebook that will deliver best social experience to over half a billion Windows Live users. Can now connect Facebook with Windows Live

-Today, 3 big announcements. First, availability of Windows Live Essentials: Windows Live Messenger, Mail, and Photo Gallery. Final, free, and works on Windows XP, Vista, and new Windows 7 beta

-Next we want to talk about where we are with Windows Live. It has become an essential companion to Windows and your PC. It's our cloud solution for communicating, sharing, and keeping your life in sync across PC, phone, and web

-I encourage you all to get out and download it, says Ballmer

-Even better, on Friday, the beta will be available worldwide

-Windows 7 enables cool new user interface things, like touch. Today excited to announce we're releasing the beta of Windows 7. Our MSDN customers can get it right now.

-On track to deliver the best version of Windows ever. All the right ingredients: simplicity, reliability, and speed. Working hard to get it right, and to get it ready

-Life without walls: PC operating system plays critical role in this, really pleased with progress made with Windows 7

-Microsoft is transforming what Windows is from a PC operating system to a connected platform

-We're committed to breaking down the barriers that exist between information, applications, and devices that people use

-We have a bigger opportunity now than we did 25 years ago, as an industry, to make a difference in people's lives

-It was the recognition that there's a whole industry of innovation that we can bring together that was the "special sauce" of Windows

-Looking back, there were 3 things that made windows and the PC successful. First, the PC enabled the best apps and let them work together. Second, the PC enabled more choice in hardware. Third, the Windows experience really helped this all work together

-At this time economically, when people are struggling to make every dollar count, the choice that offers the most power and most value for the money is the PC, and that's why, as we say, "I am a PC"

-As you can see, and many of you agree, there are very cool and very powerful PCs at many price points at an incredibly great value

-But Windows is really nothing without the innovative hardware it runs on. We've worked with PC and phone manufacturers to bring hardware and software experience

-When I say windows, you think about PC even though we have extended to phone and the cloud. The value of the PC is unmatched and better today than ever. Windows has become the language that over a billion people speak in every country and every culture around the world.

-The lynchpin should be Windows. WIndows will remain at the center of people's technological solar system. It will work across all three screens seamlessly. It will increasinly accept natural input and tie all info together through the cloud.

-By bringing all these together, we can create seamless experience in people's lives

-In many ways, connecting all this together is the last mile to creating real breakthrough for consumers

-In the future, you'll be able to connect to info and people instantly across any of those screens

-Increasingly, those barriers are going away. Internet cloud is connecting all devices together seamlessly.

-The last area of opportunity is what I call "connected experiences." Today, much of the stuff we care about sits in silos across PC, phone, web. Your experiences are disconnected when you move from one to the other.

-The UIs will evolve to be more intuitive and more natural

-Will be able to interact with computer and devices in a more natural way--they will be able to hear and see you. Speech, gestures, handwriting for PCs, TVs, and phones

-Resolution has gotten better but capabilities have remained the same. Over the next several years, TV will become more sophisticated and more connected. Boundaries between PC and TV will dissolve

-The last screen is the oldest and (in some senses) the least evolved, the TV; the center of family entertainment

-Over a billion mobile phones are sold each year; in emerging markets, it's often the first computing experience for many people. Mobile phones are more capable than ever. Over the next several years, smartphones will make up more than 50% of mobile phone market

-It's no longer just about the desktop, but about a broader vision

-Things like netbooks and efforts like One Laptop Per Child will continue to democratize computing for the next 1 billion people

-MS's original vision was to put a PC in every home, and there are still more than 5 milion people who have never owned a PC

-There's so much more opportunity ahead of us. When I think about that, I frame it in 3 main areas: the first is the convergence of the 3 screens that people use every day. The PC, the phone, and the TV

-The opportunity we possess, we in this room, to truly change people's lives through technology has not diminished in any way and, is in some senses, more powerful today than ever before

-That's why MS continues to focus on innovation and investments. We will continue to invest more than others. Why do we continue to invest?

-The pace of technological advance is bringing people closer together. Companies and industries that continue to pursue innovation during tough economic times achieve a competitive advantage, positioning themselves for growth effectively

-As this procession ripples across the globe, it feels like we've entered a period of reduced expectation, where we might be tempered to hold back optimism and ambition

-There have been remarkable advances in technology to help create a global economy, enlisted many people into the middle class for the first time

-Bill said "Make sure you're at CES, not that OTHER convention in Las Vegas!" and Jerry Yang says "why do you keep ignoring my friend requests on Facebook?"

-Since this is Steve's first time at CES, he has gotten a lot of advice and questions

-Applaud Bill Gates for doing incredible work on behalf of society across the globe

-It has become a tradition for MS to deliver this keynote

-"It's an honor to deliver the opening keynote at CES this year"

-Steve Ballmer takes the stage

-Now watching a video

-He's known as a dynamic and energetic leader

-Microsoft's goal is to offer an integrated platform, Steve Ballmer is focused on continuing Microsoft's innovations across businesses

-Steve Ballmer about to take the stage. This is the first time he is giving a keynote since taking over for Bill Gates

-Three keynoters, we're also proud of our industry insider series

-At CES, you'll see products and technologies from 2700 exhibitors, hear from industry leaders, and see nearly 200 different conference sessions